358 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



The National Irrigation Congress is not 

 Broad Scope alone concerned about the reclamation of 

 of the arid lands in certain states enumerated 



Congress. in the national irrigation law. To limit 



its objects to sixteen states and terri- 

 tories and to public lands, is to make it at every 

 session the battlefield of corporation lawyers from Chi- 

 cago and elsewhere. Its scope and objects are broad 

 enough to cover the whole nation; they are of more 

 importance than battleships, river and harbor bills; 

 they are vast enough to become a political issue whether 

 local or national; they pertain to the preservation of 

 the home, the creation and maintenance of a vast 

 productive empire, the very idea of which has suc- 

 ceeded in building up a great nation, a world power, 

 in spite of the drawbacks and obstacles thrown in its 

 way by land grabbers. They extend to the guardian- 

 ship of the millions in the reclamation fund which 

 the rats and the mice of schemers are already busily 

 preparing to gnaw into for the benefit of their own 

 pockets. Its selection of El Paso, Tex., outside the 

 reclamation area, is proof of the genuineness of its 

 diversified objects and its determination to carry them 

 out. 



The wisdom of selecting El Paso. Tex., 

 El Paso as as the place for holding the Twelfth Na- 

 an Object tional Irrigation Congress, can not be 

 Lesson. questioned. The location is an object les- 



son on the subject of irrigation. Could 

 the Congress be transported to the ancient irrigating 

 works of the Euphrates and the Tigris, visit the Nile 

 valley to study the stupendous cause of its fertility 

 and the gigantic engineering plans that are near com- 

 pletion, or travel through the irrigated portions of 

 India and see the productive character of soil that 

 has been irrigated for unknown ages, every one would 

 admit the value of the information to be gathered and 

 its usefulness as an object lesson for us who are prac- 

 tically babes on the subject. 



The equivalent of these foreign lands we have at 

 El Paso, and the lessons to be learned by the dele- 

 gates, and through them imparted to the irrigation 

 farmers of the country, will prove equally as valuable. 

 There, the beardless irrigator from the new lands of 

 the North and West may look upon and over 300 

 years of an irrigation system as perfect and productive 

 now as when it was first inaugurated. He will see 

 150,000 square miles of irrigable land, 96,000,000 of 

 fertile acres ready to be converted into a productive 

 empire on the application of water. He will see the 

 reasons for many failures,, the causes that will in- 

 sure success, and he will return home and apply the 

 lesson to his own home ranch and realize success where 

 otherwise he would be working in the dark and ex- 

 perimenting all his life. 



El Paso was an inspiration. 



A Crocodile whose recent meal of an 

 The unwary traveler had disagreed with his 



Crocodile refined stomach, thus addressed a crowd 

 Syndicate. of fat, juicy children who stood on tho 

 river bank watching his writhing, while 

 the big tears were coursing down his cheeks : 



"Dear children, I weep because I feel sorry for 

 you. It has come to my knowledge that you are to 

 meet with a horrible fate unless you let me save you. 

 There are a lot of wicked crocodiles that want you 

 badly. You can see their villainous eyes bulging out 

 of the surface of the water all around. They are wait- 

 ing to gobble you up, but I will save you, dear chil- 

 dren. Come up close and I will tell you how I am 

 going to do it." 



Just as the guileless infants with one accord 

 were about to gather around the weeping crocodile, 

 one of their number with more sense than the rest, 

 and less confidence in crocodiles generally, leaped in 

 front and waved them back vehemently. 



"Keek back, fellow boys, if you value your lives 

 and your belongings. Do not be deceived by the tears 

 of this fellow. He is fooling you. He is the head 

 of the Crocodile Syndicate, he is the Corporation 

 Lawyer of the whole bunch, and if he gets you in his 

 power, the whole crowd will jump on you and gobble 

 you all up without leaving so much, as a brass button 

 by which your sorrowing friends can identify you." 



Then the children ran away home and remained 

 there safe, while the angry crocodiles of the syndicate 

 chewed off the tail of their weeping corporation lawyer 

 and refused to divide up their spoils with him any 

 longer, 



It was declared positively upon the floor 

 Investigate of the Ogden Congress, that the Govern- 

 the Land ment of the United States is losing 

 Stealing. 25,000,000 acres of land per annum 



through fraudulent entries, and by vari- 

 ous methods of stealing. This matter should be in- 

 vestigated, for THE IRRIGATION AGE does not believe 

 that Theodore Roosevelt, in view of his repeated public 

 utterances to th effect that the public lands are in- 

 tended for the homes of the American people, ought to 

 rest under the suspicion that the acts of his officials 

 belie his words. 



If anybody steals a postage stamp from the Gov- 

 ernment he is speedily put where he will do so no 

 more. Why, or how, men can steal 25,000,000 of 

 acres of land every year, or one acre and the Gov- 

 ernment look on with apathy, is something every citi- 

 zen would like to know. There was a call for proofs 

 made at the convention, but the attempt to repeal all 

 the land laws to enable the public domain to be 

 grabbed by wholesale, obscured the retail stealing go- 

 ing on at the above rate per annum. The question 

 demands an investigation and THE IRRIGATION AGE re- 



